#NCASC13 Eat-up

by George Julian

In two days time the biggest one off gathering of social care curriers take place to coincide with the National Children and Adult Services Conference (variously known up until yesterday as #NCASC #NCASC13 or #NCAS13). Pedants may point out that this in itself isn’t such a hard title for us to gain, as this is only the third time the curry club has met. Originally in July we had nine curriers, September saw over 200 meet together simultaneously across twelve UK and one Canadian eat-up, and this week 70 people will come together at Jinnah in Harrogate.

When Matt and I first decided to give the conference curry a whirl we were, as ever with curry club, winging it a little, experimenting, guessing and going with our gut. Ultimately if you play it safe, if you don’t stick your neck out and risk failure, then you never know if it might work. We decided curry together would be alright if no-one wanted to join us. We originally released 40 tickets and uptake was instant, the booking was extended to 50, then 60 and now 70. We’ve left the waitlist open in case there are any last minute additions or requests – if we get cancellations we’ll redistribute and we’ll contact the venue again on the day and try to accommodate anyone still keen to come. UPDATE 15/10 We extended the booking to 80, last few tickets now available and everyone on waitlist accommodated. Same rules if it fills up again.

So where does this leave us? We’re both excited by the potential and holding our breath a little to see how it works out. We’re sticking to the same rules as before – love curry, love social care is the only requirement to join in, no experts, no hierarchies, no agenda, no presentations and absolutely no sales. We’ve also insisted that all comers are welcome and are delighted that a number of local people who won’t be at conference have booked to come along.

Is there a plan for the evening? There will be no presentations or key note speeches. All you have to do is chat and eat curry. If this works well there is the possibility of a trip to the pub afterwards. If it doesn’t, run like the wind! The curry club is a gathering of folks who wish to discuss and debate, no-one attends as as a representative of an organisation or group, so lift all that baggage off at the door and collect in on the way out when you have a nice full tummy and brain.

As on the last occasion we’re delighted at the range of people, job roles and organisations represented (even if we insist on you leaving those qualifiers at the door)! We have social work students, people using services, carers, providers, community interest companies, independent consultants, those working in sector led improvement, local authority managers, assistant directors and directors, councillors and lead members, academics, researchers and others working in education. A full range of experience and learning opportunities. Given the national nature of the conference we also have a spread of attendees from across England.

Just out of interest to check the balance of people booked on, we banded curriers into five arbitrary groups: government (inc LA, NHS, Cllrs and CQC), knowledge (inc academics, lecturers, students, researchers and sector led improvement), providers (inc CICs, housing, support services, services and other selling organisations), independent consultants (because we didn’t check what they independently consulted in) and unknown/other (where it wasn’t immediately clear from a quick google/twitter search). This is what the results looked like:

So we’re quite pleased with that spread and the fact that no one group dominates any other. In addition this is the first time Matt and I have hosted (we didn’t really bother with a host in July) but we’re delighted to have three former hosts from September to guide us: Angela, Eddie and Jemima, along with a number of curriers from September who I’m sure will make new people feel very welcome. Also we again have a spread of tweeters (47) and non-tweeters (23). You can check all the currying NCASCing tweeps out on the twitter list here.

The final thing to mention before Wednesday is that we’ve had lots of feedback that the success of curry has come partly from the lack of hierarchy and partly from the no sales rule. We sincerely hope that will remain the case on Wednesday. We will also be using the #socialcarecurry hastag as before so those not in the room can join in the conversations if they wish.

Logistics: Curry starts at 8.30pm (this is later than previous occasions to account for people in sessions at conference that run into the evening). The venue is Jinnah on Cheltenham Parade, and we will retire to a (yet to be determined) pub venue afterwards and liaise with some curriers who are otherwise engaged and can’t make it for food. The curry is a buffet and it will be £12 per person + your own drinks. We are going to try and collect payment on the door to save negotiations at the end of the night (and then everyone can sort their own drinks), so if you can bring cash for your curry that would be great, but if not don’t worry we’ll sort card payments on the evening.

Cancelling/booking: If you need to cancel on the day please drop a tweet to the curry account, or an email to the curry club account and/or let me or Matt know via twitter. If you don’t have a space and would like one please sign up on the waitlist and leave your mobile/twitter details and we’ll contact you if space becomes available/we’re able to extend the booking.

As soon as NCASC #socialcarecurry is out the way we’ll move on to agreeing locations and hosts for December 5th, so keep your eyes peeled on the blog and twitter account for more info.